Panel's landmark denial frees New York City mosque site

A New York City commission on Tuesday denied landmark status to a building near the World Trade Center site, freeing a group to convert the property into an Islamic community center and mosque that has drawn national opposition.

Seth Wenig / The Associated PressChairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission Robert Tierney, second from left, gestures during a meeting of the commission to discuss the landmark status of 45-47 Park Place in New York City Tuesday.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 9-0, saying the 152-year-old building blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks wasn't special or distinctive enough to meet criteria to qualify as a landmark. Commissioners also said that other buildings from the era were better examples of the building's style.

National and New York politicians and the Anti-Defamation League have come out in recent weeks against plans for the mosque, saying it disrespects the memory of Sept. 11 victims. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who also chairs the foundation building the Sept. 11 memorial, has defended plans for the mosque.

Several members of a crowd of 50 or 60 applauded, while others shouted "Shame!" as commission chairman Robert B. Tierney called for the vote. One opponent, Linda Rivera of Manhattan, held up a sign reading, "Don't glorify murders of 3,000. No 9/11 victory mosque."

Supporters of landmark status, including GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio and some Sept. 11 family members, had argued that the building warranted landmark status because it was struck by airplane debris during the attacks.

But commissioner Christopher Moore noted that the debris hit a number of buildings.

"One cannot designate hundreds of buildings on that criteria alone," Moore said. "We do not landmark the sky."

The mosque would be part of an Islamic community center to be operated by a group called the Cordoba Initiative, which says the center will be a space for moderate Muslim voices.

Oz Sultan, the program coordinator for the proposed Islamic center, said last week that the building has been changed too much over the years to qualify as a landmark.

"I think a lot of the negativity we're getting is coming from people who are politically grandstanding," Sultan said. "We're completely open and transparent."

The Rev. Robert Chase, founding director of an interfaith group called Intersections, supported the project and called it "a really positive example of how we can move forward from 9/11."

Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, told The Wall Street Journal in Tuesday's editions that the center's board will include members of other religions and explore including an interfaith chapel at the center.

"We want to repair the breach and be at the front and center to start the healing," said Khan, a partner in the building and the wife of the cleric leading the effort.

But the Anti-Defamation League's national director, Abraham Foxman, said Khan's proposals fail to address the crux of opponents' criticism that erecting the mosque near ground zero is insensitive to 9/11 victims' families.

The Jewish organization came out against the mosque last week, saying "some legitimate questions have been raised" about the Cordoba Initiative's funding and possible ties with "groups whose ideologies stand in contradiction to our shared values."

The project also has drawn opposition from former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, among others.

Lazio attended Tuesday's hearing, saying he still had questions about funding sources and saying the national debate over the mosque had nothing to do with religion.

He said: "It's about this particular mosque called the Cordoba Mosque. It's about being at ground zero. It's about being spearheaded by an imam who has associated himself with radical Islamic causes and has made comments that should chill every single American, frankly."

The imam, Faisel Abdul Rauf, had refused to call the radical Palestinian group Hamas a terrorist organization, Lazio has said. Rauf also had said in a "60 Minutes" interview televised shortly after 9/11 that "United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened."